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I periodically feel the need to reach out to the collective for home repair and improvement discussion. I didn't see one central thread for this type of stuff, so I figured I'd start one. Bob Vila's got nothing on Goodjers.

Yeah, I grew up in a house with a heat pump for AC, and my parents would use it for heat... Right up until it actually got cold. Then it was back to gas furnace. We used to call it "cold heat" because the moving air cooled as much as it warmed. Mind you, this was a pretty old system, and I understand heat pumps are better than they used to be... But there's only so much it can do.

Here in Sweden old woodstoves which heated the radiator/heating system and the water are being more and more replaced with heat pumps.

I just went over a few weeks ago. I gain a lot of room when the stove is out of the cellar, and the accumulators (1000 liter reserve-cans to keep it warm during the night) are also gone. Make a luxe shower in the room the stove was. Make over the room were the accumulators stood.

The new heat pumps deliver! I have three small ones (one for every floor). Two with wifi so I can program them when I am away. In the long run it's cheaper than buying and moving wood every autumn.

It does gives another feeling of warmth, though. Radiator heating feels more comfortable then air heating due to the furniture also warming up... but it costs more... a lot.

Thanks all for the help! The inspection ended up going very well. There were no huge problems found, and nothing that was overly alarming at all. The inspector said that the house was doing quite well for its age, and he had no reservations about it.

The biggest thing was probably that the attic was full of vermiculite, which can contain asbestos. We're going to ask the seller to have it taken out, but I'm not sure what they'll say. I've heard it can get on the expensive side. If it does stay there, people have said it shouldn't be a problem. We aren't going to do anything up there anyway.

The other problems were some exposed live wires in the basement (old knob and tube wires, the house itself is all on regular circuitry now). Nothing an electrician can't take care of in 10 minutes. A couple of the fixtures have to be replaced too.

I just use the push mower, mulch 'em, and leave 'em. The trick to getting this to work is doing it regularly, so you're not doing a ton at once. Waiting until all the leaves are down is a recipe for disaster. Clearing regularly is apparently also better for the lawn.

I still need to rake and haul the mountains of pine needles out to the woods behind the house. I got a third of it done last weekend, I'll probably need to do that this weekend.

This. Did it the old fashioned way up until last year. Sprung for a nice mulching push mower. Works great.

Canada's Worst Handyman taught me a thing! I didn't know that there's a drill bit for hanging drywall that gets the screws sunk to just the right depth. Turns out there is, and it's real cheap! Just in time because I need to re-hang some ceiling drywall in my garage.

So, my wife’s uncle is a general contractor and carpenter. He and his business partner do small scale projects for family members at significantly reduced labor costs.

We asked him to remodel our bathroom as it was very old, obviously not done to code (no ventilation for the fan - just vented in to the attic, lights were installed wrong on a circuit that shouldn’t be carrying them) and ugly as sin.

I expected some god-awful discovery based on previous projects in the house. My dad, a master electrician, found BARE COPPER installed as wire literally nailed to the studs after we opened up the wall. My front door frame wasn’t anchored to anything - it was apparently placed upright and then nailed to the exterior trim with about 200 (literally) finishing nails, and the list goes on.

Anyhoo. This project’s discovery was that the tub drain piping wasn’t welded together. It was literally just loosely placed together. How it never leaked was beyond me.

I'm planning to call an HVAC guy to have this looked at, but figure I'll share my issue here in case anyone knows an obvious thing to check. Our home has a gas furnace with two zone heating, separate thermostats for upstairs and downstairs. Twice in the past month or so, most recently this morning, our main floor has been fairly cold (~64) during a period where, on our thermostat's schedule, the temperature was supposed to be set to 72. The baseboard radiators were cold, and the temperature for the previous period, although not 72, was still supposed to be higher than that (66 or so). The thermostat's digital display showed the correct time and indicated that it understood things were supposed to be at 72. The upstairs zone was working just as it should. Both times this has happened, I fiddled around with the dial on the thermostat, checking the settings, then went over and felt the baseboard heaters, tapped on them and doing other things that would have no particular reason to be helpful. And then, within a few minutes, for no reason apparent to me, the heat started kicking in and things got to temperature as they should. Any ideas what's happening?

I'm not excited to call the HVAC people who originally (a decade or so ago, before we lived here) installed the furnace because their few yelp reviews are not encouraging, but my wife insists that when last we had an HVAC issue, she called other HVAC people and they all said our system could only be serviced by the company that installed it. That makes no sense to me. Is that a thing?

That shouldn't be a thing. The only way I could see it being a thing is if there's a warranty situation happening where the warranty only applies to either the original installer or an authorized installer, and the one she talked to wasn't authorized for that brand of furnace.

If it was installed ten years ago, and you have no dealings with that company, then I think you're free to call around.

The only thing I run into is some "higher-end controls" can be proprietary (another company might choose to avoid it, but usually they'll buy the parts from the owning-company and add their 20%(or higher) markup to that), but as far as home-use stuff... I don't think that would ever come into play...

(I'm assuming a forced-air furnace) Depending on your zone-control setup the 2 (or more) thermostats will take an average of the Setpoints, and an average of the room-temps - then figure out what/when it should be doing. Other (ie: better) setups will look at "which one is out by the most" and act accordingly.

Multi-zone setups will (always?) have a motorized damper (VAV - variable air volume) - to open/close whichever zone does/doesn't need the heat - zone 1 is fine, but zone 2 is cold = close Z1, open Z2, and run heat.

It's possible one of your VAVs has crapped out, and is no longer turning open/closed. Can you see them?

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.Space Beast Terror Fright
garion333 wrote: Pretty sure Wink should win by default

I'm wondering if my wife didn't, in her search for people who deal with heating, accidentally call some petroleum dealers or something (a lot of homes in Vermont are heated by oil rather than gas), and then misinterpreted their explanation of why they couldn't help her?

Thanks for the suggestion Wink...I'll take a look at the furnace when I get home and try to identify the VAV and see if that's an issue. The strangest part of this whole thing is how this problem seems to get fixed after I just kind of fiddle with the thermostat and poke at the baseboard heaters. Maybe it's something in the thermostat that's not triggering right, but when I go to explore the settings and then switch it back to "run", it overcomes whatever issue had been affecting it? Maybe that points to a faulty thermostat? I'm just guessing. Most of all I want the solution to be me not spending any money on anything

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.Space Beast Terror Fright
garion333 wrote: Pretty sure Wink should win by default

Seriously. We had one that wasn't working anymore, and then I realized the backlight wasn't working at night, and then I noticed this tiny little symbol on the screen that told me the battery was dead/dying.

Thanks for the tips. The HVAC company whose info is on the furnace tells me they're booked for two weeks out but will see me after that, so at least this gives me plenty of time to diagnose and potentially fix the problem myself From my research (assisted by your comments) it seems like there could be a problem either with the thermostat (perhaps even the battery!) or a problem with the zone valve. Fingers crossed it's a dumb problem and I stumble onto the solution.

Anyhoo. This project’s discovery was that the tub drain piping wasn’t welded together. It was literally just loosely placed together. How it never leaked was beyond me.

One fun discovery at a rental we had was that back in the day, sewer pipe fittings were sealed with lead. Over time this degrades and disappears. We learned this when the sewer line backed up and overflowed through the now missing fitting into our cellar. After a thorough cleanup I filled one of those hose-attached fertilizers with bleach and sprayed down the entire cellar. Good times.

My house didn't have a wired doorbell when we bought it so I'm on my second of these. I'd love a smart doorbell, but my house is so small and the living room is so close to the front door that it's almost silly. Plus, we always have to sprint to grab the dog so he doesn't destroy the window sill or bust through the glass.

Maybe I can justify it when I'm older and can just glance down at my iPad without getting up.

"I never should have taken purchasing advice from Gary Busey.
What the hell was I thinking?" - Paleocon

My house didn't have a wired doorbell when we bought it so I'm on my second of these. I'd love a smart doorbell, but my house is so small and the living room is so close to the front door that it's almost silly. Plus, we always have to sprint to grab the dog so he doesn't destroy the window sill or bust through the glass.

Maybe I can justify it when I'm older and can just glance down at my iPad without getting up.

I did a wireless doorbell as well. Works great. Lots of different kinds of them. I live in harsh winter climate and have had no issues with the wireless push button on the one I bought.

A friend has one of the ring camera doorbells. Super cool function to have a discussion with someone at your door from your phone. I really wanted one when I saw that, but after thinking about it... no one comes to my door anyhow so it would have been another of the many under utilized needs that I tend to purchase. Self restraint won out.

"What I lack in skill, I make up for in comedic relief, and I'm really funny."
SteamID: grinds2gwj

Yeah, we have an existing wired one that was stuck pushed in and made a nasty burning electrical smell last week, so I need at least disconnect it, but I kinda want a camera one as we get a lot of knocks on the door. It'd be nice to know it's just the delivery guy and not a neighborhood kid trying to sell us crappy cookie dough. (I always buy it...)

Whelp, in commemoration of the end of the world, I'm going to be running around setting things on fire. Toodles! -Xeknos

So is anyone else trying to sell a house and running into mass panic over the current tax bill? We currently have an offer that's 15K below asking price. Unfortunately, the feedback I'm getting from my realtor and a friend in the mortgage business is buyers are scared to pull the trigger if the mortgage deduction goes away.

So is anyone else trying to sell a house and running into mass panic over the current tax bill? We currently have an offer that's 15K below asking price. Unfortunately, the feedback I'm getting from my realtor and a friend in the mortgage business is buyers are scared to pull the trigger if the mortgage deduction goes away.

That doesn't really make sense, though. The tax deductions will still be there. They just might not end up being more than the standard deduction.